Re: Task Manager

I have read some say that the problem also existed with Chrome but that it is "fixed." I tried it with Chrome today and didn't lose control as completely as I do with Firefox, but it took about 20 seconds to be able to do anything. With Firefox is it three to five minutes. And that's on my new desktop - 2 Xeon processors, 48g RAM, and 1 Terabyte SSD.

Re: Task Manager

PVaddi wrote:

Hi All,

We have fixed a bug in our upcoming 9.0.19.xx version that resolves an issues that we encounted after the Firefox Quantum update in Nov 17'.

Specifically, our ID shield in combination with the Firfox quantum update was resulting into high CPU usage and we had complaints about machines being unresponsive for a few of our customers that reached out to our support team.

This fix is currently part of the latest Beta version, Beta users i would really appreciate if someone can confirm that the issue was infact resolved.

Re: Task Manager

I didn't like the other AV I installed, so I reinstalled Webroot and did this experiment:

I had read that whitelisting taskmgr.exe might solve the problem. It didn't, but I decided to leave it whitelisted and also whitelist Firefox. That dropped my time to recover control of my computer from about 5 minutes to about 23 seconds. Even faster on my less powerful laptop. I've tried it several times and am consistently seeing much quicker recovery, though not instantaneous like it used to be. Question: is whitelisting Firefox a mistake? That doesn't leave all web browsing unprotected, does it?

Re: Task Manager

smoddelm wrote:

I didn't like the other AV I installed, so I reinstalled Webroot and did this experiment:

I had read that whitelisting taskmgr.exe might solve the problem. It didn't, but I decided to leave it whitelisted and also whitelist Firefox. That dropped my time to recover control of my computer from about 5 minutes to about 23 seconds. Even faster on my less powerful laptop. I've tried it several times and am consistently seeing much quicker recovery, though not instantaneous like it used to be. Question: is whitelisting Firefox a mistake? That doesn't leave all web browsing unprotected, does it?

After many successful tries, I got a major slowdown again. I added tasklist.exe and taskkill.exe to the Whitelist and things seem basically normal now. Sometimes all works instantly, and sometimes I get a lag up to 10 seconds or so. Interestingly, Task Manager is still a little slow to close. Also, if Webroot is running a scan, all bets are off.

Re: Task Manager

Hi smoddelm

Out of interest may I ask for clarification as to what you mean when you say "whitelisting" as per se WRSA does not have true Whitelisting functionality built into the client (whitelisting is done in the Webroot Cloud)...it has Identity Protection & Block/Allow/Monitor fucntionality under which you can register a file?

In terms of your question: "is whitelisting Firefox a mistake?"; in my view that does not leave all web browsing unprotected, but in any case if you were to be 'attacked' by a web site driveby download, for example, WRSA would intercept any malicious payload & neutralise it.

At least that is my uunderstanding...however, other members mauy have a different understanding and want to chip in here.

Re: Task Manager

Baldrick wrote:

Hi smoddelm

Out of interest may I ask for clarification as to what you mean when you say "whitelisting" as per se WRSA does not have true Whitelisting functionality built into the client (whitelisting is done in the Webroot Cloud)...it has Identity Protection & Block/Allow/Monitor fucntionality under which you can register a file?

In terms of your question: "is whitelisting Firefox a mistake?"; in my view that does not leave all web browsing unprotected, but in any case if you were to be 'attacked' by a web site driveby download, for example, WRSA would intercept any malicious payload & neutralise it.

At least that is my uunderstanding...however, other members mauy have a different understanding and want to chip in here.

Regards, Baldrick

I'm "allowing" the files. I used the term "whitelisting" because that's how I saw it described wherever I first read that allowing taskmgr.exe would help.

Re: Task Manager

I'm stumped again. Trying to run task manager AND regedit while Firefox was running caused me to lose control for so long that I finally gave up and did a hard reboot. Now that I'm paying attention, there seems to be a lot of Webroot activity on every startup. Does it run a scan every reboot? I've been through the hard reboot several times now this morning and Webroot has scanned every time I restart.

Also, since I am having to hard reboot, I lose my "allow" configuration and have to start over. I exported my Webroot settings thinking that would make it easier to set up again, but every time I try to import, the Webroot icon disappears momentarily, another scan is initiated, and my settings are not imported. I have never had a problem importing Webroot settings before.

Given that Windows Defender seems to be much improved from its earliest iterations and I am a pretty careful user, I may just default to it until / unless Webroot fixes the probelm. There is not the slightest hint of an issue using task manager and regedit with Firefox running with just Defender as my protection.